Wee-Hour Ramblings

It's 3:50 in the morning, though  it feels like the middle of the night to me.

I finally gave in to the insomnia and came downstairs with a laptop, a sweater, and a container of icecream.

My neighbors don't seem to notice this middle of the night feeling.  I think I could decipher what they are talking about, or name their tunes if I knew anything about that kind of music.

I check in on Facebook, hoping someone is updating their status...proof that I'm not the only one whose night is is drizzling away without sleep.  But that's mean; why would I want anyone to be glassy-eyed and fuzzy-headed just because I will be?

I am not happy with you, Mr. Rob Bell.  Along with everything else jostling in my mind that is incapable of producing answers, I have your challenging thoughts to contend with, too.  Tonight I started to read Love Wins, his newest book.  And then I really couldn't stop reading it.  Not because I could understand it all, or wrap my mind around it all.  It is a book that was asking me to view my faith from a completely different paradigm.

Not a few degrees differently.  I mean, a completely different paradigm.
I'm not sure how I even managed to make the journey with him to the end of his book.  I even reread a few parts I wanted to try to understand better.
He's not a complex writer.
But he's certainly sharing a viewpoint that is new and challenging to me.
I'm suspecting that 4:30 (now) is not the time to sort it out.

Half a container of Haagen Daaz later, I might be able to slip back into bed and feel absurdly jealous of the man who always falls asleep faster than I do, and who always awakes before I do.  It seems unfair.

Seriously?!  Are my neighbors cheering for a pinata?  It seems a bit much.

But then, everything seems much too much.
My friends, amid sorrow and heartache of their own, told me to "take time to grieve," and I didn't admit that I don't really know what that means.

Does it mean staying up half the night with too many thoughts and not enough rest?
Does it mean eating chocolate icecream at odd hours because this is oddly comforting?
Does it mean trying not to cry at work, but finding a closet and sobbing anyway?
Does it mean being angry--about things that would barely bother me before, and getting on soapboxes and making speeches and taking up causes and then fizzling out, deflated and confused?

Maybe it is just acknowledging that everything is kind of confusing right now.  We're back on that shoreline of the ocean of suffering.  And I'm seeing so many, many bottles holding the grief of those all around and dear to me.

The waves keep pounding in.
I am sad...

...and outrageously annoyed that my neighbors are having a party and are THIS loud, THIS late.
I wish there was a crazy lady who would yell something shocking at them and make them all be quiet.  Instead, I'm heading back to bed.
Wee-hour ramblings are just that: ramblings.  It doesn't seem like I've gotten anywhere.
Or that there was even a destination to aim for in the first place.